David Rickard
dal 7/3/2007 al 14/4/2007
Segnalato da
7/3/2007
David Rickard
Trolley Gallery, London
The artist presents the series Dilate, paintings that fundamentally explore the base materials of painting, isolating the concept to its purest state in the examination of canvas and paint. Also forming part of the exhibition are three spherical sculptures.
Dilate
Trolley Gallery is pleased to announce the first UK solo show of
David Rickard. He primarily presents the series Dilate, paintings
that fundamentally explore the base materials of painting, isolating
the concept to its purest state in the examination of canvas and
paint. Rickard has previously applied a playful but considered
subversion to the usage of materials in his work, from balloons that
breathe on their own, inflating and deflating, to a refrigerator
covered in icing.
Each work in the Dilate series of 10 paintings measures 100x100cm and
consists of 10 shades of grey acrylic paint on stretched canvas, that
carefully replicate a central 1x1cm area of raw canvas. Translating
this raw material to an enlarged 100:1 scale representation refers
directly to each work’s own material, yet also as a series refers to
the base materials of painting in general. Each work contains at once
pure real material, the small square of original canvas, and an
enlarged visual representation of this reality through paint.
However, there exists an inability to view both original and
representation simultaneously due to the differing scales, close up
the raw canvas can be scrutinised, whilst from afar only the painted
simulation is revealed. The restrained palette of grey acrylic tones,
layered like topographical contours, map the terrain of each canvas
creating a series of painted monochromatic landscapes.
Also forming part of the exhibition are three spherical sculptures.
They too explore a shifting literal usage of raw material, self-
referential to their individual components. ‘One hundred thousand’
is constructed from exactly 100,000 individual ‘hundreds and
thousands’, the brightly garish cake decoration, each glued one by
one to create a perfect sphere. It plays in an irreverent way with
the name of the material, labouring the primary structure of 100,000
individual components to the point of literal extreme. Similarly
‘Sleeper Cell’ holds the potential explosive energy of thousands
of unlit matches, formed as a self-supporting hollow ball with red
sulphurous tips exposed outwards. Finally ‘Hair Ball’ is literally
as it reads, constructed over three years directly from the artist’s
own hair.
David Rickard was selected for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize in 2005,
and presented by Trolley Gallery at Zoo Art Fair 2006. He was born in
New Zealand in 1975, and following the completion of his Bachelor of
Architecture at Auckland University in 1998 he travelled to Italy
where he studied fine art at Brera Academia di Belli Arti, Milan.
This proved a formative period in his artistic practice, working in
the environment of Arte Povera artists such as Diego Esposito and
Luciano Fabro, whose early experimental explorations of concept and
material were an influence. In 2001 Rickard moved to London, and
during 2002-03 was an associate student of the Masters of Fine Art
Course at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. David
Rickard has been part of numerous group and solo projects both in the
UK as well as Italy and Bulgaria. He currently lives and works in
London.
Private view: 8 March 6.30-8.30pm
Trolley Gallery
73a Redchurch Street - London